We have been very busy since our last update! We were able to begin planning for our big day: August 20! Our kids are eager to get started and begin partnering with businesses to promote our lemonade stand. We will begin the entrepreneurship classes the week of June 13th during our summer program. One of the challenges we’ve run into is capacity within the club. Covid protocols restricted the number of youths we could have in the clubs. We hoped that the numbers would drop in time for us to open those restrictions a bit, but unfortunately, we have been unable to accept more youth into the club. Therefore, we have created a plan to rope in more youth serving organizations to include in the project. Within the next few weeks, we’ll meet with those organizations to get them onboard and select our team leaders. In the meantime, our club youth will begin designing our lemonade logo, creating a recipe, and identifying potential locations and organizations that could possibly receive the profits from the stand. Currently, we haven’t used any of the funds. We’ve adjusted the timeline to purchase materials during the months of May-July. That purchasing period will utilize the bulk of our budget. Stay tune for more updates! Thank you for keeping up with our journey as we connect youth and entrepreneurship to community improvement. Sincerely,
Great things are on the horizon for our Oasis Community. Despite our Coterie’s limited visibility since the onset of COVID-19, we’ve not lost sight of our commitment to our community. Many of you may recall providing us with valuable feedback as to what you would like to see in our community during our HOPEFEST in 2019. Since then, we’ve met with several organizations and officials to rally support for our community in an effort to bring forth the changes that you, our neighbors expressed wanting to see. In November of 2021, we pitched the idea of a community food pantry to the 24 Hour Citizen Project. We are proud to say that our project has been selected for backing! The Oasis Food Pantry is not only a way for us to give back to the community, but for the community to give back to itself. The pantry will serve as an alternative food resource for the residence of our community and will be conveniently located outside of the Martin Luther King Center. The pantry will house non-perishable food and toiletry items, FREE for all community residents.
In addition to receiving funding from our backers, we are excited to share that we’ve already began receiving donations from various community partners to help sustain our pantry once opened. Currently, we are working to finalize renderings of the pantry and a construction timeline to share with you.
We desire for our residents to see the Oasis Food Pantry as a reservoir and source of hope, healing and restoration. Our hope is that this initiative will spark community engagement, pride and unification, and we invite you to get involved. Be on the lookout in the months to come for more information as to how you can join our efforts.
We are committed to the betterment of our community and are grateful for your support.
There comes a time in an organization’s life cycle where we must step back and evaluate progress and direction. We made a commitment long ago to never stop learning. And to always ensure our time and resources are being used wisely. For those who have been following us since inception, you know us as “civicside” – the community crowdfunding website that launched to crowdfund community projects in Acadiana. While we enjoyed our time in the crowdfunding arena, we quickly realized that other websites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe were entirely more robust, and we couldn’t (and didn’t want to) compete. We found our time was spent maintaining/building a website, rather than helping citizens pursue projects for the community. For those who know us best, you know that encouraging citizens to pursue passion projects always came first above anything else.
After 3 years of successfully crowdfunded projects, we learned the uniqueness and challenges associated with citizen-led projects. We learned that citizens need not only financial backing, but also a team of friends, decision makers and expertise to push their idea along. We felt discouraged watching citizens struggle to get good ideas off the ground, but knowing there was a better way.
Then came the 24 Hour Citizen Project.
It was a concept that encapsulated everything we learned as “civicside” the crowdfunding website, and was a recipe for sparking action. Like all good recipes, they deserve to be tested over and over again. We’ve done just that over the last two years, and feel that after two successful events in July 2016 and July 2017, the 24 Hour Citizen Project is here to stay. In this decision, we’ve also found a new identity. We’re no longer a crowdfunding website. And rather will now focus efforts solely on the 24 Hour Citizen Project so that citizens can continue to have a platform and incubator for community ideas.
So, we’ve evolved. And so will our name. We’re now the 24 Hour Citizen Project (24HCP), and no longer civicside. While we’ll always be grateful for our civicside experience, we’re excited to finally have found our identify- The 24 Hour Citizen Project.
We’ve found ourselves a little backed up given the weather situation over the last couple of months. Who would have thought we’d experience rain for the basically all of December? Follow that up with two hard freezes, a cracked pipe, and brutally cold wind to buff walls. Well then, my community, you have yourselves our starting point. But we’re not going to let the weather hold us back any longer!
We’ve starting prepping the walls. Our first artist has sketched her first lines, our visiting artist, Nicky Davis, will be painting from February 22-26, 2018 due to Mardi Gras rain delays. All other local artists have met with the project director and have even raided her paint stash ;-). Now that the weather is leveling out we aim to have these murals completed in no time at all. All 24 Hour Citizen Project funds have been expended at this point. Our hard deadline is 2018, but we anticipate that everything will be completed by April 2018 – in time for Festival International.
Since we embarked on the necessary mission of putting a cover at every bus stop, the community has backed this effort. We now receive pictures of people waiting for the bus in the elements including the hot sun, rain and cold wind. It is heartbreaking. And more and more people are taking notice and refusing to accept this for our own community. We had our first Citizen Bus Stop Task Force meeting a little over two years ago, when there were much less people taking notice or looking to get involved to address this issue. We spent this time learning, listening and understanding how our transit system works, where bus stops are located, how many shelters we already have, how we get more, what they cost, how they are installed and what issues are preventing shelters at all stops. Sometimes, we learned it’s funding. Other times we learned it was right of way issues. But because of citizens like you, through the 24Hour Citizen Project, we had $5,000 to get to work, while we were listening, learning and understanding.
What we had was the ability to not only create a more affordable bus stop that takes up less right of way, but because we took the time to understand the bus system, we could create a better bus stop. We teamed up with local artist, CeCe Cole and local architect and artist, Joel Breaux and designed a lean, replicable, sustainable, creative, safe and durable bus shelter. The $5,000 grant will go to the research and development and building the first prototype to be installed with LCG Public Works to test in the elements and adhere to all of their safety requirements. We are nearing the sourcing of the components we need to construct that prototype. However, in the meantime, we will be hosting another Citizen Bus Stop Task Force meeting in March. All are welcome.
